


start as you mean to continue

by defcontwo



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Robin (Comics), Young Avengers
Genre: DC/Marvel crossover, Dimension Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So. What's your origin story?" Friendship across dimensions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	start as you mean to continue

It'll be fun, America said. Inter-dimensional time travel, she said. I'll take you out for the best pancakes in the multi-verse, she said, that sneaky twinkle in her eye, cheeks dimpling and Kate had let herself get caught up in it, in who they are and where they're headed, time spent just the two of them and the inevitability that neither of them wanted to rush, not really, not just yet. 

Except. You know. Aliens attack, tear in the fabric of reality and Kate went tumbling, tumbling down into a new universe, a different universe and America -- America couldn't follow. 

It's been three months and America still hasn't found her. 

Kate wakes up every morning and digs her fingernails into her palms and prays to a god she doesn't even believe in but it's getting a little harder every day. 

But at least -- well. At least she has Tim. 

\- 

"Dude." 

"Hmm?" 

Kate just raises an eyebrow and it's like that time in the car with Clint and all those abs, she could look away but you know. Nah. 

"Are you aware of the fact that you're naked?" 

Tim looks between her and the coffee pot in his hand and then looks down before shrugging. She kind of likes that. That he doesn't freak out or make it a thing. Tim has this way about him -- it reminds her of David way, way too much but a lot of the time, he reminds her of _her_ and well. 

That's the part that can get a little weird. 

"I'm used to living alone?" 

He's blinking blearily at her, coffee pot still clutched tightly in one and she's starting to get that this is a thing with him, that there's no talking to him before he's had at least three cups and it's not like she doesn't know this routine because human car crash, drinking straight from the pot, been there done that got the purple t-shirt and the chip on her shoulder to boot. 

Kate waves a hand. "Drink your coffee, we'll talk after." 

They move around each other in silence, puttering around and getting cereal down from the cabinet and he manages to save her enough coffee in the pot but only just and only because she caught him just in time and leaned over to slap him upside the head and he grunted softly and blinked at her again in what must've been an apology before collapsing at the kitchen table and taking a deep sip before plunking his head face down on the bright white plastic surface. 

Ten minutes pass and then another ten minutes pass and then Tim raises his head up, propping it up on his chin and clutching his mug close to his chest. "Sorry, what did you want to talk to me about?" 

Kate raises a careful eyebrow at him. He raises one right back. It's kind of annoying but also kind of awesome, like they should have their own YouTube channel. 

Maybe minus the gratuitous nudity. 

There are hickeys dotting the right side of his neck so that, she guesses, probably explains the lack of clothes. 

"You have a pretty lady sneak in your window in the middle of the night?" 

Tim purses his lips, shaking his head. 

"Gentleman caller?" 

He nods. 

Kate shrugs and takes another sip of coffee. "We really should have a YouTube channel." 

She waits a beat and then, "also, put on some futzing pants, you loser." 

\- 

It goes like this: 

She lands in an alleyway, breaks her fall on a garbage can and goes crashing butt first into dirty pavement right in the middle of what looks like a fight between a dude in a cape and a cowl that kind of looks like he's got a condom stuck to his head and a bunch of thugs who wouldn't look out of place in a Martin Scorsese movie. 

Even odds says she should probably be on the side of condom dude so she shrugs and gets to it, flipping herself up from the pavement and kneeing a thug in the groin before putting an arrow in the shoulder of another and before she knows it, all four of them are on the ground and zip-tied and Condom Dude (™) is turning to her with a stubborn set to his mouth that screams trouble. 

"You're in the wrong town," CD says. 

"Yeah, no shit. But also, what?" 

"Star City? The Arrows operate in Star City, not Gotham. Everyone knows that." 

"The Arrows?" 

"Yeah, you know…Green Arrow, Red Arrow…" CD says, ticking the names off his glove-clad fingers. 

Kate snorts. "Green Arrow, seriously? How futzing unoriginal is that." 

CD laughs. "I know, right? All right, go on. Who the hell are you? Not Purple Arrow, I'm guessing." 

Kate raises her chin. "I'm Hawkeye." 

"Nice to meet you, Hawkeye, I'm Red Robin."

Kate stares on, unimpressed. 

What the hell is it with these people and their colors. 

\- 

Red Robin, it turns out, is Tim Drake -- a twenty-year old billionaire who's been a vigilante since she was in middle school. He's weird -- kind of really weird, in a way that somehow manages to oscillate between quiet and unassuming and a chatterbox who won't stop making 2001: A Space Odyssey references which for the record, how bizarro is it that that movie exists in more than one universe? 

Someone's gotta look into that. Stanley Kubrick very definitely might be a Skrull. 

He's irreverent and kind of a serious know-it-all and has seriously bad taste in music and he can't function before three cups of coffee and the one time when they decided to try and make baked ziti together, they set off the fire alarm and had to put out their dinner with a fire extinguisher. 

She's already punched him in the face at least three times for being kind of a jerk and she's pretty sure she's got a couple more punches in her, but. 

She likes him. 

They're friends, she guesses. Or weird soul siblings across dimensions, possibly. 

Maybe more than a little bit possibly. 

Seriously, ever since Billy and Tommy, she's pretty much never gonna rule that shit out. 

\- 

"So. What's your origin story?" 

A sweatshirt-clad arm reaches across the linoleum table to steal a fry and dip it in mayo. "Unfulfilled rich kid talks fellow vigilantes into letting them join in. Yours?" 

A shrug and then, "yeah, you know. Pretty much the same." 

\- 

"Stop it. With the eyes and the -- the everything." 

Kate elbows Tim in the side. "What, I can't make eyes at a pretty blonde?" 

Tim grimaces, looking pained and a light bulb goes off above Kate's head. 

"Ex-girlfriend, huh?" 

Tim shrugs which she's starting to get means yes or maybe yeah, sort of, but it's complicated. In another week, she'll have her very own Tim-to-English dictionary. 

"For the record -- since she's your _ex_ , she can flirt with whoever she damn well pleases, Timmy," Kate says, reaching up to his flick his ear. "But you know, slow your roll, Angst Boy, I do have a smokin' hot inter-dimensional kicker of butt out there searching for me." 

"On second thought," Tim says, "you and Steph are clearly perfect for each other. What do those words _even mean_?" 

"Oh yeah," Kate says, "because I'm the one here with weird communication problems." 

"What are you two gossiping about over there?" Batgirl calls out, hands on kevlar-clad hips, brow furrowed like she is maybe a little bit too used to putting up with Tim's bullshit. She is way, way too cute. Even cuter when she was breaking some guy's nose earlier. Okay, so Kate might have a type. 

_In purple_ , though. Man, in another life. 

"Tim's freaking out because I think you're foxy," Kate says, shrugging even as Tim squawks and turns to glare at her. 

Batgirl laughs, loud and bright as a bell. "Oh, I'm really starting to like _you_ , Hawkeye. Can she stay?" 

Tim groans and buries his face in his hands. 

\- 

They work well together which -- which she gets the feeling he wasn't expecting, not really. He doesn't have a whole lot of experience working one-on-one with an archer but as Kate handily beats into him, the bow and arrows aren't exactly her only skillset although he might as well make use of them while he's got them because her skills? 

Her skills are _awesome_. 

She goes high and he goes low and then they meet in the middle and kick some ass. 

It's not home, not by a long shot, and Gotham is like the freaky unholy bastard child of New York and an AK-47 with some magic juice thrown in, but. 

Damn, do they have some fun. 

\- 

"You know, I probably won't be here forever." 

Tim nudges her lightly. Shoulder to shoulder and close to the edge on the roof of his apartment building, the sun setting above them and the wind at their backs and in this moment, Kate is okay. But it's not always going to be like this. 

This can't last forever. She doesn't belong here. 

"I know," Tim says. "One day, I'll have my apartment back and I can walk around naked as much as I want." 

"Weirdo exhibitionist," Kate scoffs. "I'm serious, though. And it's like…I miss. I miss everything. I close my eyes and it's like this world…it even smells different, there's something in the air that's just off to me, that's just _wrong_. But at the same time…" 

"Yeah?" 

"I'll be sad to say goodbye, I guess." 

"Yeah. Me too." 

Kate swallows thickly, can feel the pin-prick of tears at the edges of her eyes and this is getting a little too much, a little more than what either of them are comfortable with so she does the only thing she can do. 

She gives him a noogie. 

\- 

They never do get that YouTube channel started.


End file.
